What people are saying:

“While Ahnwee, Minnesota, like many small towns, seemed destined to fade into oblivion, now it is facing extinction, until a group of determined citizens band together to save it. The cast of characters is both bumbling and wily as it fights off the powers that be, including a lascivious politician and one particularly noxious hog farmer. William E. Burleson has written a comic novel that will keep you laughing as you root for his quirky characters and Ahnwee’s victory.”—Lorna Landvik, Minn. author of Patty Jane’s House of Curl

“An engaging tale of a speck of a Minnesota town where old arthritic dogs can safely enjoy a nap in the middle of main street and old men living off Social Security can peek a bit of flesh at the local strip club. Ahnwee may sound like Ennui, but that’s where the similarities end. Sybil, Ahnwee born-and-raised, is back from the Big Apple and caring for her elderly father who’s prone to wandering the town pantless. Now mayor, Sybil’s fighting impossible odds to stop Ahnwee from disappearing all together. Hilarious, heartfelt, and humane, Ahnwee grabbed me from page one and kept me reading all night.”— Brian Malloy, author of The Year of Ice and After Francesco

“Ahnwee Days brings us on a humorous and deeply poignant journey into the soul of today’s American heartland where a cast of bruised and weary characters, after passively watching their small-town waste away, suddenly jump into action and fight like hell when faced with its extinction. This is a beautifully rendered story of small-town, large-hearted people fighting the complex social and economic forces that swoop down like vultures to destroy today’s rural communities. While fiction, the lessons of Ahnwee offer a vivid blueprint for how self-will, self-determination, family and community can overcome all the money and corruption in the world. This all said, fair warning—do not read Ahnwee Days while drinking a hot beverage, lest you burn yourself laughing; this may be the most side-splittingly funny book you’ve ever read.”—Frank Haberle, author of Downlanders

“Unlike the blades of Ahnwee’s errant wind turbine, William Burleson’s deviously delightful portrayal of a dying small town comes at you with a facetious wit…like Fargo on steroids…”—Vincent Wyckoff, author of Beware of Cat

“You have no need to be concerned about suffering from ennui while reading William Burleson’s Ahnwee Days, because this is a witty, comic novel that will keep you laughing from beginning to end. Ahnwee is in (fictional) fact the name of a dying little town on the plains west of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, where one day over a hundred years ago the town’s founder heard a hooker of French descent from the neighboring town of Despar (so easy to mis-read as Despair) exclaim, “Ah. Oui!” and, apparently very happy with what he heard, named the Town Ahnwee.  The novel’s modern-day heroine, Sybil, cast by the local media as a “New York dominatrix,” has returned home to care for her demented father and, having become mayor, is determined, with her team of supporters, to save the town from the destruction posed by a number of powerful and amusing villains (one of the worst of them being a fellow named Balzac—no relation to the French writer, unless there’s a part of the writer’s life I know nothing about). Can she succeed? Or will she need some form of divine—or less than divine—intervention?”—Brian Duren, award winning author of Whiteout, Ivory Black, and The Gravity of Love

“In this carnival ride of a novel, William E. Burleson invokes the nostalgic ghosts of small towns past , the spirit of Garrison Keillor, and a raw and contemporary perspective that urges readers to keep laughing and carry on.”—Elisa Sinnett author of Detroit Fairy Tales

“A story filled with quirky and memorable characters, Burleson tells it with a light-hearted humor that kept me laughing throughout. He paints a vivid and somewhat absurd detailed picture of a small midwestern town with a flavor of storytelling that took me into the lives of his characters and set me down at the table with them. A perfect blend of hapless good-guys and deplorable bad-guys.”—R.R. Davis, author of The Various Stages of a Garden Well-Kept and Squid Boy and Raven Girl

“Place: Ahnwee, Minnesota. A very small town.
Population: A full cast of quirky characters.
Problem #1: A-casino rich Indian tribe claim the land on which the town was built belongs to them.
Problem #2: A local pig farmer claims his family inherited the town when the founders grew bored with the place and left.
Problem #3: The state bureaucracy claims the town does not actually exist.
Solution: Read Ahnwee Days.”
—Richard Hartman, author of A Night in the Woods